Unless otherwise indicated herein, the description in this section is not prior art to the claims in this application and is not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
A typical electrophotographic-method image forming apparatus performs a development process by supplying toner to an electrostatic latent image formed on a surface of an image carrier (for example, a photoreceptor drum) from a developing device. Toner used for such a development process is replenished to a developing device from a toner container. The above-described toner container includes, for example, a container body that houses toner to rotate.
The above-described toner container is mounted to a mounting portion located in the image forming apparatus and is removed from the mounting portion when the toner inside the container body becomes empty to be replaced with a new toner container. In employing such a configuration, removing the toner container from the mounting portion before the toner inside the container body becomes empty is not economical since the toner inside the container body cannot be used up. Therefore, removal of a toner container from a mounting portion is sometimes restricted by a lock mechanism until toner inside a container body becomes empty.